I have made it to site! I am a sworn in Peace Corps Volunteer, I live in a village on a mountain, and its great!
Right now I am celebrating Christmas with fellow PCVs in town. We had a secret santa gift exchange, where the presents included peanut butter, cookies, pasta, and plastic buckets. Its funny what you come to appreciate most living in this country. You can never have enough buckets. Never. You need as many as you can get in order to horde water, wash dishes in, shower out of, wash clothes in, sit on, store food in, make bucket wine in... Its also really useful to keep a bucket in your room in case you have to pee in the middle of the night and your choo is too scary to use after dark. This happened during homestay, only I didn't have a bucket. I used a candy container instead. Peeing in your room is an interesting experience.
I can already see how living in Tanzania is changing me. I have become so much more aware of my water usage, and how much fuel it takes to cook my food or heat water. Taking a hot shower is such a luxury. I haven't taken one since I came to Tanzania. A cold shower is super safi, because it isn't out of a bucket.
Before joining the PC, my friend told me a story about a Volunteer who, early on in her service, had to deliver a baby, and ever since then I have been certain that that would happen to me. I researched how to deliver a baby, what to do in the case of certain complications. Its all written down in my big black book of knowledge. So, on my first night at site, when a woman came to my door speaking rapid Swahili that I couldn't understand, I should not have been surprised to find a woman in labour at the clinic and me expected to help her deliver the baby. Let me tell you, its completely different when its in Swahili. There I am, alone with this woman, and I am stuck on the fact that I can't tell her to breath, because I don't know how to say that in Kiswahili. Luckily, she had done this before and was very calm. Eventually, the nurse for the clinic arrived, and then immediately the baby came out! I stand there, see the baby slide out, hand the nurse the clamp, string, scissors, then I'm wiping the baby down and rubbing its chest to get it to cry. The nurse is helping the mother to deliver the placenta. I am holding this floppy new born baby. Oh my god. Birthing a baby is disgusting.And really cool. This is my life right now.
So, everything else at site has been normal and slow and after that. I go on walks. Talk to people. I have already gotten really good at staring out my window for entertainment, or watching the cows and goats eat out of the garden in front of my house. Things are pole pole (slow). I have a really annoying cat that the previous volunteer left behind. She cries all the time and is really high maintenance; how she has survived this long in Tanzania is beyond me. It makes me miss my cat in the States, her sassy independence, how she talks to birds, how she will yell at you. Brandy, are you taking care of her?
I'll let you know if I deliver any more babies.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Shadow Week or Maisha wa Voluntia
I'm not sure if that is proper Kiswhili, but I am shadowing a PCV this week in Mbeya region, in southern TZ. Mbeya could not be more different from Tanga- cold, mountainous, evergreens. I have gotten to see what life as a volunteer looks like. Some highlights:
I met a man named Flamingo Body and a girl named I don't know.
Full grown men and women sat on me during a 4 hr bus ride.
I baked 3 loaves of bread on a charcoal jiko using pots in one day.
I watched a Tanzanian drama, which is surprisingly similar to Asian dramas, just in Swahili.
I saw a pig be born.
Shadow has made me much more excited about living at my site. Living with a host family is a good experience, and the best way to learn about Tanzanians, but it is not indicative of what life will be like at site, so, future PCTs, if you are having a hard time in training, know that things will change. If you are in Turkmenistan and stay with a home stay family for 2 years, pole sana.
Some other recent habari is that we got our site announcements! I will leave the process of site announcements shrouded in mystery and anticipation, as it was for me, but I will tell you that I am going to be in central TZ, in Dodoma region, near Kondoa. Dodoma is a desert, but my site is in the foothills, so it should be a little cooler, I will be by a health clinic, and should have solar power to my house, which is a BFD. Swear in and installation is in about 2 weeks!
My cross country trip to Mbeya from Tanga for Shadow enhanced how grateful I am to be in this country. It is beautiful and diverse here. Every PCV I have talked to has emphsized the importance of not making generalizations, how every village is different, how culture can change across just a few kilometers. In the States I think we make broad assumptions about other peoples and countries, especially about "Africa." The people- and landscape- in Tanzania are so diverse, with different languages, religions, clothing, food... there is no way to make bblanket statements about an entire continent. This is something that I have to work on- I catch myself talking "Africa" based on what I have seen here, but I don't know anything about "Africa." I barely know anything about Tanzania. I know I am in the right place when my coworkers tout diversity over generality.
I also find it strange to be in the midst of development work. I was a biology major, I know nothing about development, yet I find that I have very strong opinions about how development should be done, especially in this place where development is such a hot topic. A man came into the village of the PCV I am shadowing a month ago and built a bunch of pump wells, which is great, except that now they are all broken, and no one knows to fix them. Where was the education or training for the villagers? Why didn't he contact the other American living in the village? Electricity is slowly working its way up the mountain to her village now, too, which will improve life and is great, but why not bring supplies for using a renwable energy resource instead, like solar? It probably would have been easier to carry a bunch of solar panels in a truck than build giant poles all up the mountain for electrical wires, which still need to be connected to each house.
I read this National Geographic article on how the Earth's population is at 7 billion, and how fertility rates and population density correlate to amount of resources used. Much of the Earth's population is condensed into developing countries, but it is the devloped countries- which have fewer people and lower fertility rates- that are taxing Earth's resources most. Most devloping countries are reducing fertility in an effort to increase economic development- or maybe decreased fertility is a byproduct of development, kind of like the chicken and the egg. There aren't necessarily resources sufficient to support 7 billion people, and counting, but people also shouldn't continue living without sanitation and infrustructure when other people have private jets and yachts.
Development is interesting, and frustrating, and difficult, and there is definitely a better, more sustainable, way to do it. I hope I can do it the better way.
I met a man named Flamingo Body and a girl named I don't know.
Full grown men and women sat on me during a 4 hr bus ride.
I baked 3 loaves of bread on a charcoal jiko using pots in one day.
I watched a Tanzanian drama, which is surprisingly similar to Asian dramas, just in Swahili.
I saw a pig be born.
Shadow has made me much more excited about living at my site. Living with a host family is a good experience, and the best way to learn about Tanzanians, but it is not indicative of what life will be like at site, so, future PCTs, if you are having a hard time in training, know that things will change. If you are in Turkmenistan and stay with a home stay family for 2 years, pole sana.
Some other recent habari is that we got our site announcements! I will leave the process of site announcements shrouded in mystery and anticipation, as it was for me, but I will tell you that I am going to be in central TZ, in Dodoma region, near Kondoa. Dodoma is a desert, but my site is in the foothills, so it should be a little cooler, I will be by a health clinic, and should have solar power to my house, which is a BFD. Swear in and installation is in about 2 weeks!
My cross country trip to Mbeya from Tanga for Shadow enhanced how grateful I am to be in this country. It is beautiful and diverse here. Every PCV I have talked to has emphsized the importance of not making generalizations, how every village is different, how culture can change across just a few kilometers. In the States I think we make broad assumptions about other peoples and countries, especially about "Africa." The people- and landscape- in Tanzania are so diverse, with different languages, religions, clothing, food... there is no way to make bblanket statements about an entire continent. This is something that I have to work on- I catch myself talking "Africa" based on what I have seen here, but I don't know anything about "Africa." I barely know anything about Tanzania. I know I am in the right place when my coworkers tout diversity over generality.
I also find it strange to be in the midst of development work. I was a biology major, I know nothing about development, yet I find that I have very strong opinions about how development should be done, especially in this place where development is such a hot topic. A man came into the village of the PCV I am shadowing a month ago and built a bunch of pump wells, which is great, except that now they are all broken, and no one knows to fix them. Where was the education or training for the villagers? Why didn't he contact the other American living in the village? Electricity is slowly working its way up the mountain to her village now, too, which will improve life and is great, but why not bring supplies for using a renwable energy resource instead, like solar? It probably would have been easier to carry a bunch of solar panels in a truck than build giant poles all up the mountain for electrical wires, which still need to be connected to each house.
I read this National Geographic article on how the Earth's population is at 7 billion, and how fertility rates and population density correlate to amount of resources used. Much of the Earth's population is condensed into developing countries, but it is the devloped countries- which have fewer people and lower fertility rates- that are taxing Earth's resources most. Most devloping countries are reducing fertility in an effort to increase economic development- or maybe decreased fertility is a byproduct of development, kind of like the chicken and the egg. There aren't necessarily resources sufficient to support 7 billion people, and counting, but people also shouldn't continue living without sanitation and infrustructure when other people have private jets and yachts.
Development is interesting, and frustrating, and difficult, and there is definitely a better, more sustainable, way to do it. I hope I can do it the better way.
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